


Inside, Looking Out

by trascendenza



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: AU, Episode: s01e15 Run!, M/M, Remixed, layers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-13
Updated: 2007-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Sylar sees, Sylar knows, Sylar is; this is his nature.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside, Looking Out

**Author's Note:**

> There is a lovely remix of this by tinheart here: [And Keenly Through (The Jaquemart Remix)](http://community.livejournal.com/remixthedrabble/19730.html).

Sylar is the eye. Sylar sees, Sylar knows, Sylar is; this is his nature.

Gabriel is the mundane, the less than, the smaller end of the equation that refused to balance properly no matter how much his mother tweaked it.

*

Zane is a construct—the reality of the flesh that went by this name became irrelevant with the necessity for a vessel. Merely a shape and identity to hide Sylar from the wayward son's curious eyes and probing mind.

A temporary mold to contain the eye that would look upon Mohinder and see only a prize to claim.

*

Zane can talk to Mohinder about destiny and mean what he says. Gabriel isn't brave enough to mean it. He quietly observes the interplay, takes careful note of Sylar's restless prowling within the chafing of the mold.

Sylar _knows._ This is Sylar's nature. Even the heightened mediocrity of Zane's identity cannot stop it.

*

Sylar was born before he was named: Gabriel, in a fit of quiet rejection, had broken into Dr. Suresh's home. Slavering like a starved canine, he'd rifled through the files, looking for something, anything—anything that would make Suresh give him a second chance, that would prove to them both that he was not futile. What he found, instead, was a list, and a name with a notation next to it. The words "late maturation charted on this marker, dissim. to Shanti" were read by Gabriel, but it was Sylar who _saw_ them. Who knew what they meant.

*

Gabriel is the heart. Gabriel loves Mohinder like he imagines some people love their siblings. His mother deemed Gabriel unworthy of a sibling, covering it up with lies. _You're my special boy, Gabriel, why would I want another?_ He's spent a lifetime hoping to find a brother.

So he loves, hopelessly, ashamed of wants that aren't brotherly at all (but how would he know?). He can't look at Mohinder dispassionately—he can't even look at a watch dispassionately. Every mechanism, to Gabriel, is a thing of rarefied beauty: only by taking apart can he repair.

Sylar only knows how to take apart.

*

Zane cracks like the layers of powder his mother would put on her cheeks before going out to face the world—her armor, his prison. Sylar seeps through these cracks, revels in every painfully heightened sound even as Gabriel cringes at them. It's too much, too soon, but Sylar wants it all, needs it _all_.

He is the eye, and now, he is the ear. This is his nature.

*

_I could kill you,_ he doesn't whisper in Mohinder's ear after they're both asleep.

_I should kill you,_ he doesn't think as he lies awake, ears flooded with the sound of a heartbeat that reminds him of who he shouldn't be.

*

_I'm not done with you,_ Sylar promises, because he's not.

_You see, Doctor—_ (Sylar spits the word out like profanity) _—your father had another list. A list full of expendables, cheap plastic lives that hardly made a mark on me except when they were extinguished. No one should be condemned to that, don't you think?_ He caressed his thumb over Mohinder's closed eyes, the lips slack with unconsciousness. _But you, good Doctor—you have made quite the impression. I'll have to take my time with you._

Sylar becomes the voice.

This is his nature.

*

Gabriel is the internalized, the turning of gears. He no longer controls response to external stimuli.

But with a steadfast and determined patience, he convinces Sylar that Mohinder's power is worth less than his life.

For now, that is all he can do.


End file.
